“I think, Monsieur Hanaud,” Jim said dryly, “that you do not like anyone to ask any questions except yourself.”
Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust.
“Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful Mademoiselle Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright the question you meant to ask! It was whether the face she touched in the darkness was the smooth face of a woman or the face of a man.”
“Yes. That was it.”
It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly at Jim. There could be no doubt of the thought which was passing through his mind: “I must begin to give you a little special attention, my friend.” But he was careful not to put his thoughts into words.
“I did not want that question asked,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions are confusing things which had best be avoided altogether.”
Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He had too clear a recollection of the swift movement and the look with which Hanaud had checked him. Both had been unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud would not have been alarmed at the prospect of a question being asked, merely because the question was superfluous. There was another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in Hanaud’s mind. Only he could not discover it.
Besides, was the question superfluous?
“Surely,” Hanaud replied. “Suppose that that young lady’s hand had touched in the darkness the face of a man with its stubble, its tough skin, and the short hair of his head around it, bending down so low over hers, would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her hands carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, unexpectedly, the face of a man? She could not have told her story at all without telling that. It would have been the unforgettable detail, the very heart of her terror. She touched the face of a man!”
Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he was no nearer to the solution of his problem—why Hanaud so wholeheartedly objected to the question being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark which drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim’s speculations.
“Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the darkness that night—if that night, in the darkness she touched a face at all.”
Jim was utterly startled.
“You believe that she was lying to us?” he cried.
Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air.
“I believe nothing,” he said. “I am looking for a criminal.”
“Ann Upcott!” Jim spoke the name in amazement. “Ann Upcott!” Then he remembered the look of her as she had told her story, her face convulsed with terror, her shaking tones. “Oh, it’s impossible that she was lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?”
Hanaud laughed.
“You may take this from me, my friend. All women who are great criminals are also very artful actresses. I never knew one who wasn’t.”
“Ann Upcott!” Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, but now with a trifle less of amazement. He was growing slowly and gradually accustomed to the idea. Still—that girl with the radiant look of young Spring! Oh, no!
“Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe’s will,” he argued. “What could she have to gain by murder?”
“Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! Analyse it. You will see—what? That it falls into two parts.” Hanaud ground the stump of his cigar beneath his heel, offered one of his black cigarettes to Jim Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it with a sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop fizzling, would never burst into flame.
“One part when she was alone in her bedroom—a little story of terror and acted very effectively, but after all anyone could invent it. The other part was not so easy to invent. The communicating door open for no reason, the light beyond, the voice that whispered, ‘That will do,’ the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don’t believe that was invented. There were too many little details which seemed to have been lived through. The white face of the clock and the hour leaping at her. No! I think all that must stand. But adapt it a little. See! This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!”
“Yes,” said Jim.
“And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might not be telling a true story of himself and attributing it to Mademoiselle Harlowe?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott’s story in the same way,” continued Hanaud. “Suppose that sometime that day she had unlocked the communicating door! What more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during the daytime. Her room was empty. And that communicating door opened not into Madame’s bedroom, where perhaps it might have been discovered whether it was locked or not, but into a dressing-room.”
“Yes,” Jim agreed.
“Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after Mademoiselle Harlowe’s departure to Monsieur de Pouillac’s Ball. She sends Gaston to bed. The house is all dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is joined by—someone—someone with the arrow poison all ready in the hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room just as Ann Upcott described. That she turns on the light for a second whilst—someone—crosses the treasure-room and opens the door. Suppose that the voice which whispered, ‘That will do now,’ was the voice of Ann Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame Harlowe’s body to the third person in that room!”
“The ‘someone,’ ” exclaimed Jim. “But, who then? Who?”
Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. “Why not Waberski?”
“Waberski?” cried Jim with a new excitement in his voice.
“You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this murder and you answered your own question. Nothing you said, Monsieur Frobisher, but did your quick answer cover the ground? Waberski—he at all events expected a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for
